The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
Interpretation
A college education helps develop the ability to recognize good character in others.
William James emphasizes that the primary purpose of a college education extends beyond mere academic knowledge; it is about cultivating the discernment and judgment necessary to identify individuals of good character. This perspective suggests that education should contribute to a person's moral and ethical understanding, enriching their ability to navigate personal and professional relationships.
In practice
During a graduation speech to emphasize the value of education.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
It is possible to take a population of students who are failing and whose schools are failing them, who are being written off as not being college material, and if they have the right support, they can all go to college and succeed.
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
A lot of parents today are terrified that something they say to their children might make them 'feel bad.' But, hey, if they've done something wrong, they should feel bad. Kids with a sense of responsibility, not entitlement, who know when to experience gratitude and humility, will be better at navigating the social shoals of college.
I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.
Some teachers teach for others to learn. That's not me. Some teachers teach for others to accomplish. That is me.
A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.
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